


Resolutions

by deinde_prandium



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, New Year's Fluff, New Year's Resolutions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 11:01:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13246839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deinde_prandium/pseuds/deinde_prandium
Summary: Peeta's struggled all year with a very important New Year's resolution. Luckily, Haymitch is there to help his favorite barista make a move.





	Resolutions

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely on an adorable Twitter thread I came across last year that needed to be Everlarked, badly. Many thanks to dealan for giving this a look before I posted.
> 
> As always, I own nothing,but I borrow with love. Hope everyone has had a wonderful start to the new year!

Haymitch breathed a sigh of relief as he watched the couple at the table next to his rise from their seats and take their leave. The two of them would have been better off had they just shared a single chair, since the girl was practically in the boy’s lap the whole damn time. Almost made Haymitch want to walk out, but he wasn’t a quitter. This was his regular spot, and he wasn’t about to give it up on account of two kids who had decided to spend their lunchtime sucking face.

Honestly. A display like that was just plain unsanitary.

“Care for a refill?”

Haymitch looked up at the young man calling to him from the counter, a bemused smile gracing his fair features. Of all the baristas at the cafe, Peeta was probably his favorite. The kid had a good head on his shoulders. Polite, but not simpering. Friendly, but not nosy. Most importantly, he always seemed to be at the ready when Haymitch needed another cup…and conveniently looked the other way whenever he decided to top up his order with the contents of his flask. In exchange, Haymitch took it upon himself to offer scads of unsolicited advice whenever the situation warranted.

“Boy, you need to put some kind of ‘No PDA allowed’ sign up in this shop,” Haymitch groused as he ambled toward the counter. He slid his empty mug across the granite and pointed at the dark roast. “Ain’t nobody that wants to see two people try to eat each other’s faces off on a Thursday afternoon.”

Peeta chuckled. “Lay off, old man,” he scolded amiably. “It’s the holidays.”

“Christmas was almost a week ago.”

“Yeah, but the spirit is there,” Peeta countered. “Plus, with the new year coming…I dunno, people are taking license to be a little…freer with their affections.”

Haymitch raised an eyebrow. “And would that include Sweetheart?”

The young barista froze, a blush blooming on his cheeks. Instinctively, he looked around to make sure no one had overheard their conversation. Haymitch smirked. “Relax, kid. She’s over in the corner cleaning up after that mom who just left with her little ones. She’ll be there a while sweeping up all them Cheerios. Not like you need to waste your breath though, that look on your face tells me all I need to know. Still haven’t told her yet, hm?”

Taking a breath, Peeta ignored the jibe and continued to go about refilling his customer’s mug. Steam rose in wispy tendrils between the pair as he passed the cup back. “I’ve still got time.”

Haymitch poked a finger at his arm. “You told me at New Year’s last year that you would tell that girl how you feel by Valentine’s Day,” he reminded him, “and by my calculation you’re about ten months late. Hell, you’re close to missing it for another year altogether! So much for resolutions, eh?”

Peeta ran a hand through his hair with a sigh. “I know, I know. Delly’s been on my case forever now. She even gave me a deadline.”

“Oh? And when is that?”

Peeta lowered his voice even further. “Um…it’s 3:47. Today.”

“3:47. Seems kind of random, no?”

“She said she picked it because it seemed ‘distinctive enough for me to actually remember it,’” he replied with a shrug.

Haymitch looked at the clock. “Well, shit, boy. You must really like playing things right down to the wire, because you’ve got less than an hour left.”

Peeta looked up at the clock to confirm what Haymitch had told him. Panic, then anguish flashed across his face. He hung his head. “I…I can’t.”

“Of course you can. It was your resolution, so you gotta give it a shot. Two years is far too long to keep feelings like those all bottled up. Trust me.” Haymitch raised his mug by way of a salute. “Why don’t we do this: I’m gonna head back to my table and read the paper. And if by 3:47 you don’t report back to say that you’ve gone and told her, I’m gonna tell her for you.”

Haymitch smirked again, unfazed by the look of shock painted on Peeta’s face. Some people, he reasoned, just needed a kick in the ass to get things moving. Satisfied that he had sufficiently spurred the young man into action, he turned and walked back to his seat by the corner window. Opening up the paper, he absently skimmed across the stories while keeping an eye on the events that he hoped to see unfold before him.

Unfortunately, not much happened - at least, not anything he cared to see. In fact, Peeta seemed to throw himself into whatever task he could to avoid talking to his fellow barista - wiping down counters, helping customers, and clearing table after table.

The seconds ticked by, and before Haymitch knew it, he was back to being the only customer left. Just the way he liked it. The older gentleman continued to peruse an article on the latest developments in Puerto Rico’s rebuilding effort, watching out of the corner of his eye as Peeta warily approached the object of his affection. The pair leaned back against the sink as they surveyed the nearly empty shop.

Haymitch observed as Peeta ran a hand through his blond waves, quietly agonizing over how to make his confession. He looked up again at the clock. Haymitch’s eyes followed.

3:46.

Only one minute left, he thought to himself. Come on, kid. You can do it.

Surprisingly, it was the girl who spoke first.

“Hey, Peeta?”

Even from a distance, it was not hard to see Peeta’s petite co-worker wringing her hands as she contemplated her next words. Something was obviously bothering her.

Peeta turned to her, his expression concerned. What a gentleman. “Yeah, Katniss?”

“I, um,” Katniss began, her gaze dropping to the floor. “This might make things weird, but there’s something I need to tell you, and I would much rather you heard it from me than from Gale…”

Peeta’s eyes narrowed. It appeared that this Gale character was not a person with whom Peeta was on friendly terms - surprising, given that the kid seemed capable of making friends with a brick wall. “Gale? You mean that tall guy who comes in to pick you up after your shift sometimes? The one who always looks like he wants to kill me?”

Katniss sighed. “Uh, yeah, him. Anyway, he’s kind of on a mission, and he basically said that if he comes in tonight and finds out I haven’t told you, he’s going to tell you himself.”

It was at this point that Haymitch started to wonder whether it was actually a good idea to blatantly eavesdrop like he was. Shit was clearly about to hit the fan, and he didn’t want to stick around to clean it up.

He watched as Peeta gripped the edge of the counter, his knuckles turning white. “Tell me what? Is everything okay? You’re not in any kind of trouble, right? Because I can help if you need anything.”

Katniss scowled. “No, it’s nothing like that. I don’t need anything, I’m fine.”

It was Peeta’s turn to scowl. “Well, then what’s going on? Are you…are you quitting?”

“No -”

“You and Gale…there something going on with you two that you wanted to announce?”

“What? No!”

“Then what?”

Katniss didn’t answer. Instead, she silently picked at an invisible thread on the strap of her apron. Peeta tried again. “You know, if whatever he’s holding over you is really bothering you that much, you don’t have to tell me. I can tell him to fuck off if you want.”

“No, I want to tell you…I just don’t want to mess things up. You’re one of my best friends, you know?”

Oh, shit, Haymitch thought. Here comes the friend zone.

Peeta seemed to be of the same mind, offering Katniss a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yeah. I get what you mean.”

Haymitch frowned. This isn’t exactly how he had thought things were going to play out. If anything, he was betting that Katniss felt the same way Peeta did.

He was just about to fold up his paper and put the pair out of their misery when Katniss broke the silence again.

“No, Peeta. You don’t.” Katniss heaved another sigh. “The thing is…oh God, why is this so hard to say? The thing is, I kind of have a crush on you. Honestly, it’s more like I’m hopelessly in love with you…I kinda have been for a while now.”

Haymitch smiled behind his newspaper. He knew it.

Expecting a happy reaction on Peeta’s part, Haymitch was puzzled that the kid didn’t immediately respond. In fact, when he lowered his paper to see what was going on, he was shocked to find that the normally loquacious barista had been rendered temporarily mute.

When Peeta finally spoke up, there was no reciprocal declaration of love. His response was quiet. Serious. He wasn’t even smiling. “Exactly how long do you mean when you say, ‘for a while now’?” he asked.

“Um…a few months? Actually…it’s probably more like a year. Maybe longer. It kinda crept up on me,” she admitted.

Another brief silence followed. Haymitch watched, baffled. If he didn’t know better, he’d think the kid was actually upset by Katniss’ confession.

Peeta’s actual reply was even more confounding. “I, um. I need a minute to process this. I’m not…I’m just…I’m gonna go to the back, and I’ll be back in just a minute,” he muttered, quickly disappearing into the kitchen.

Haymitch was tempted to run back in there and beat Peeta over the head with his paper. What the hell was wrong with that boy?

Katniss looked equally bewildered, as though she had no idea what kind of rejection to mentally prepare herself for. Her brow creased as her eyes darted around the room, desperate for a distraction.

Sighing, Haymitch put down his newspaper. If she needed something to do, he could help with that. Holding his mug aloft, he called out, “Hey, any chance I could get a refill?”

Katniss looked up, as if only remembering that the little coffee shop drama she was starring in had an actual audience. Inhaling deeply, she grabbed a nearby pot and headed over to his table. “Be right there.”

Haymitch studied the girl’s features as she silently refilled his cup. Although she wore her signature scowl, it was clear that she was hurting; her grey eyes shone brightly, almost brimming with tears. Despite his better judgment, he tried to console her. “It’ll be okay, Sweetheart,” he said gruffly. “Just give the boy a minute to figure out what to say.”

Katniss just shook her head.

Suddenly, the kitchen door swung open, revealing a determined looking Peeta. The young man strode purposefully to where Katniss stood. Wordlessly, he took the pot of coffee out of her hand and deposited it onto the table. Then, without any further preamble, he gathered the girl into his arms and kissed her soundly on the mouth.

Not wanting to interrupt - or, more accurately, not needing to have the mental image of his two least annoying baristas kissing in the middle of an empty coffee shop stuck in his head - Haymitch quickly shook his newspaper out and resumed reading as he waited for them to stop.

That did not, however, stop him from listening to the conversation that followed. After all, at this point he was invested. He felt like he deserved to know how the situation would be resolved.

“You love me. Real or not real?” Peeta asked when they finally came up for air.

“Real,” Katniss breathed in reply. “But why did you–?”

“I was just so mad. Not at you, at myself. I’ve been such an idiot. I just - I didn’t think I ever stood a chance, so I kept telling myself that it was just me, that there was no way…”

“Really? I thought I was being so obvious.”

“No, that was me. I’ve been struggling to find a way to tell you how I feel, and just when I had gotten the courage to say something, boom! I find out that I’ve wasted so much time by not saying anything before. Months that I could have spent telling you how much I love you - wasted.”

“Not wasted. Never. It’s my fault, too. I didn’t want to ruin anything.” Katniss paused. “Wait, you were going to tell me, too?”

“Yeah. I, uh, I made a resolution. I was supposed to tell you by 3:47 today, or, um…” Peeta trailed off.

Haymitch completed Peeta’s thought. “Or I was going to tell him for you,” he said, folding up his paper and resting it on the table. No point in pretending he was reading now. He smirked at the sight of the two still wrapped in each other’s arms. “Should have known you’d beat him to the punch, Sweetheart.”

“You knew?”

“Of course I knew,” he replied with an eyeroll. “Neither of you have been particularly clever about hiding your feelings. Anyone who could see it. Except, it seems, the two of you.”

A beat passed. His role as unlikely matchmaker and witness to all things Everlark had officially been fulfilled, and Haymitch knew that if he didn’t leave soon, he’d end up seeing things he would never be able to un-see. No happy coupling was worth the awkwardness that would follow if he stuck around.

His mind made up, Haymitch suddenly stood up from the table, peering out the window as he gathered his belongings. “Anyway, I’m off. Some advice? You two should think about closing up early. Looks like the weather’s starting to turn. Want to get home before the snow comes. You know how this city likes to shut down bus service at the drop of a hat.”

Peeta looked at him, confused. “But it’s totally clear outsi- oh.” Haymitch smirked when the young man trailed off, finally understanding the implication. “Right,” he agreed, pulling a beet-red Katniss a little closer to his side. “Good idea. Do you, um, mind taking care of the sign on your way out?”

“Sure thing, kid.” He nodded his head in the direction of the counter and lifted his mug. “Think I could get this in a to-go cup before I head out?”

“Help yourself. Oh, and Haymitch?”

“Yeah?”

“Happy New Year.” Peeta grinned, giving him one last wave as Katniss dragged him by the arm back into the kitchen.

Haymitch shook his head, sauntering up to the counter and helping himself to one last refill before transferring the contents of his mug. Hearing a giggle filter in from beyond the kitchen doors, he made quick work of grabbing the rest of his things and heading for the exit. Goddamn lovesick kids are no better than those idiots from before, he thought, flipping the sign from ‘open’ to ‘closed’ before stepping outside.

Still, despite his efforts, he couldn’t quite stop a small smile from appearing on his face as breathed warmth into his hands. With all the shit going on in the world around him, he supposed there were worse ways to end the year than with a pair of kids making good on their resolutions and declaring their love for one another - even if it did happen with only days to spare. It gave him…hope.

Happy New Year, indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> Link to original story: http://mashable.com/2016/12/21/jerry-live-tweets-coffee-shop-love-story/#9Ueb0T7e3iqX
> 
> I'm deinde-prandium on Tumblr. Come by and say hello.


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